MORE TRAINS, MORE COVERAGE, MORE THINGS TO SEE.

Florida's Brightline service has added more frequency, now that there are additional tracks to keep the freight trains out of the way, and they're thinking about where to terminate in Tampa.

Following the completion of switch and signal cutovers that permit more fluid freight and passenger operation, weekday schedules have been expanded from 11 to 16 round trips. After an existing 5:30 a.m. West Palm Beach departure, trains now leave every hour on the hour from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., except 1 p.m. Going north, trains now leave Miami at 13 minutes past every hour from 7:13 a.m. to  11:13 p.m., missing only the 3:13 p.m. trip.

Weekend schedules remain unchanged at eight round trips Saturday and seven Sunday with every-other-hour service, but timings have been adjusted to conform with the weekday “memory” schedules at all three stations.

The most significant addition is the 6 a.m. West Palm Beach departure, which expands options for commuters headed for downtown Miami.

Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Times reports that Brightline is evaluating three possible sites for a station in downtown Tampa, Fla., should the company win a competitive bid to extend its proposed Orlando International Airport “Phase 2” terminus. Three locations where local officials have detected interest are the site of a former jail near an existing bus transit center, land adjacent to Tampa Union Station (where Amtrak’s Silver Star stops), and an older 370-unit apartment complex whose owners could be persuaded to sell, according to observers.
Ben Porritt, Brightline corporate affairs vice president, told the Times in a statement “We’re analyzing a set of options that will work with the alignment of the proposed route and offer unique development opportunities, which will help establish this as a destination.”

Put another way, the development-oriented transport model they follow will not be abandoned in a rush to serve the rest of the state.  There are now four companies submitting proposals for the Orlando to Tampa leg of the service. As far as those commuter-friendly schedules, we'll see how long until those fixed formation train sets become incompatible with peak-load pricing or building ridership.

Apparently the service has sufficient cachet that travel columnists can recommend all manner of upscale stuff within walking or ride-share distance of the three active stations.  If I had known some of these things four months ago, I might have budgeted for more time in West Palm.

A columnist calling his site Car Free America offers a number of observations on what makes Brightline distinctive.

Because the service is more inter-city rail than commuter rail, its usefulness for commuters may be limited to people who live and work around the downtowns of Miami, Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm. With adjacent development happening as part of Brightline service and new high rises going up throughout all three downtowns, this commuter market will grow in coming years. I could imagine someone living in downtown WPB, working in downtown Miami and using the service every day to avoid I-95 traffic. The price of monthly Brightline passes will need to be competitive to make this commuting option a reality, though.

Traffic congestion and parking charges do a lot to induce people onto the trains: thus the Naperville Zephyrs on twenty-minute headways during Chicago's rush hours, and Amtrak selling multiple-ride tickets on the Hiawatha for and from Milwaukee.

Although this author mischaracterizes Brightline as the first privately-funded higher-speed train service (you admittedly have to have a long memory to remember 75 minute Hiawathas and six hour Twin Zephyrs for and from St. Paul) he's correct about this competition (the people staffing the Brightline stations don't think in those terms) with the local Commuter Rail operators.

I wouldn’t call Brightline “high-speed” rail like their marketing materials tout. Service was interrupted on the way back from West Palm Beach due to train traffic, and several at-grade crossings slowed service down to a crawl, but as the nation’s first privately funded passenger rail service, this first phase of service does a very good job. It also serves as a model for future public sector transit expansions in an increasingly competitive market. While Brightline isn’t competing with Uber or Lyft because of the large distances between stations, other commuter rail and light rail projects are competing with them. This means public sector transit projects need to up their game and not take riders for granted anymore – just like Brightline is doing.

New Haven Railroad advertisement courtesy New Haven Railroad Historical and Technical Association.

Whether the Brightline approach will catch on elsewhere, or whether the train takes on aspects of a rolling gated community remain to be seen.